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Sexual abuse task force hold public hearings

Dr. Gail Erlick Robinson is part of the reason Ontario has a zero-tolerance stance on sexual abuse of patients, but says the College of Physicians and Surgeons hasn’t been doing enough to protect patients.

“The standards were slipping and this, as a problem, wasn’t really being addressed seriously anymore,” said Robinson, who is the head of women’s mental health at Toronto General Hospital and a professor of psychiatry at the University of Toronto.

She’s hoping the third task force into sexual abuse of patients by health care professionals will address this. Robinson will be giving opening remarks in the first public hearing held this Saturday at the Marriott Courtyard Hotel, which will have room for 50 or so observers.

The task force follows a Star investigation into physicians who are still practising despite being found guilty of professional misconduct as a result of sexually abusing patients.

Robinson points to Dr. Sastri Maharajh as an example of a physician permitted to practise despite being a “serial offender.” Maharajh was found guilty of professional misconduct after admitting to placing his cheek or mouth on the breast of up to 13 patients. He was given an eight-month suspension but returned to work last year, with a restriction that allows him to treat male patients only. The Star investigation found Maharajh is one of 19 physicians currently with a gender-based restriction on his practice.

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“They can say to the doctor, you just touched a woman’s breast so that’s not so serious — well, that can be terribly serious for the patient,” said Robinson.

“It’s important for patients to talk about how it’s affected them not just for professional people to talk about what they think is the problem,” she said.

Private hearings will also be held for those that don’t want to share their experience of abuse publicly. The hearing on Saturday will mostly hear from experts on the subject, while victims of abuse will be speaking on March 30.

Colleges must revoke licences when a health professional is found guilty of certain sexual acts with a patient. Those acts include sexual intercourse, oral-to-genital contact, genital-to-genital contact, genital-to-anal contact and masturbation. But outside of those scenarios, such as in the case of Maharajh, it’s left up to the discretion of disciplinary panels.

In addition to reviewing penalties handed to physicians, Robinson wants to see efforts to encourage victims come forward.

“The patient bears this terrible secret which can interfere with their emotional well-being, which can interfere with future health care of any kind because they don’t trust any doctor,” she said. “There are instances of severe depression or even suicidal behaviour and hospitalization due to this.”

Robinson started to see the recurring issue of patients facing abuse by physicians in her work as a psychiatrist at Toronto General Hospital. This led to her helping write a report presented to the College of Physicians and Surgeons that prompted to the first task force on sexual abuse in 1991. The task force resulted in sweeping changes to both College policy and provincial legislation, which impacted all 23 regulated health professional colleges.

The latest task force is being co-chaired by former Ontario chief justice Roy McMurtry and Marilou McPhedran, who chaired both previous taskforces and is seen as the architect of Ontario’s “zero tolerance” policy. Educator and nurse Sheila Macdonald is the third member of the task force.

The trio will provide a report and recommendations to the government this spring on the definition of sexual abuse, whether reporting potential criminal abuse to the police should be mandatory, whether a gender-based restriction is an appropriate penalty and how victims can be better supported to come forward, among other issues.

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